


our coming of age has come and gone

by peterpan_in_neverland



Category: Never Have I Ever (TV)
Genre: 5+1, Emotional bonding, F/M, Heavy handed pop culture references, Pining, i wrote this in less than 24 hours, straight up nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26077183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterpan_in_neverland/pseuds/peterpan_in_neverland
Summary: “Fuck, marry, kill,” Brian says, his voice low, “Eleanor Wong, Fabiola Torres, and, of course—”Ben knows who Brian is going to say before he even says it, because to leave the trio incomplete would be completely out of the question—— but Ben is really, really hoping he won’t say it—“— Devi Vishwakumar.” Brian smirks and sips from his root beer bottle, and Garrett makes a long and loud oooh noise, smacking his hand into the bowl of semi stale popcorn. Ben grimaces.--OR; five times someone implied that Ben and Devi like each other, and the one time they admit it
Relationships: Ben Gross/Devi Vishwakumar
Comments: 14
Kudos: 143





	our coming of age has come and gone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cori_the_bloody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/gifts).



> A few things:
> 
> 1) thank you to Maggie, Cori, Leila, and Bhargavi for encouraging me to actually write this for real. I love you all  
> 2) Not all of these scenarios (cough cough, the third one, cough) are meant to be, like, cute.   
> 3) Please leave a kudos or a comment if you enjoy. They water my crops and clear my skin.

_i._

Devi is ten years old the first time someone other than Ben Gross tells her something completely, utterly idiotic. It isn’t surprising, really. Her dad is always telling her how smart she is, and the statistical odds that she  _ wouldn’t  _ begin to receive stupid opinions and wasteful advice from people other than her arch nemesis are low, so this is not an altogether unexpected moment.

She just does not expect to hear it from the school nurse. 

She is in getting her elbow bandaged, hydrogen peroxide stinging the spot where her elbow had scraped against the asphalt, and hot tears still stinging behind her eyes, threatening to spill, reopening the tracts on her cheeks. Her palms are a little torn up, too, but it’s hard to bandage palms, especially with Johnson & Johnson bandages and half crumpled tubes of Neosporin. Devi already knows that her mother will take one look at her and mutter  _ “avla tha? Yennuka better supplies irrku,”  _ but the thoughts fly from her mind when the nurse dabs at her palm with a cotton ball.

The school nurse asks her what happened, and she’s more than happy to provide her with the story. 

Devi, Fabiola, and Eleanor don’t generally tend to run around and play at recess— they usually sit around on the steps of the school or the dark blue perforated-looking picnic tables pushed up against the school wall that seem to collect and hold heat like solar panels do with sunlight. But, today, Eleanor is absorbed in the fifth grade choir practicing in the grass, and Fabiola is sorting through Pokémon cards, occasionally holding up some to ask Devi’s opinion.

(Her favourite, so far, is Nidorina, just because she likes it’s ears.) 

“I’m going to the swings,” Devi says, standing up from the concrete stairs and jumping off of the second one from the ground. She lands solidly, and it creates a momentary spike of pride in her stomach.

She is halfway across the playground when a kickball rolls up to her feet, and she stops in front of it, considering it for a moment before someone shouts her name. 

She looks up— she wants to say the boy's name is Johnson or Jackson, one of the old, long dead presidents, but she isn’t sure which— and frowns. He’s tall and wiry with blond hair and eyes way too brown to seem real, and a bright blue Dodgers baseball jersey. 

“Give me the ball, please?” Johnson-or-Jackson asks, and Devi bends down, picking it up. She doesn’t like the way the texture feels in her hands, rubbery lines that catch in the grooves of her palms, and frowns even deeper.

She is about to throw it back, holding it against her chest and pointing her elbows out, when she hears, “I doubt she even knows how to throw.” 

Her blood boils, her temperature skyrocketing from a stable ninety eight point seven degrees, and she stops, tucking the ball under her arm and turning on her heel to face him. She tosses one of her pigtails over her shoulder as she turns, and it makes her feel like one of the CEO’s in those movies that always manage to spin around in a chair at the perfect moment.

She knows it will be Ben before she even turns, because if there is a voice floating from nowhere to make fun of her, then there is a ninety nine percent chance of that voice belonging to Ben Gross. 

“You know you’re a scarecrow, right?” Devi says, scowling, when she sees Ben's face. He’s too skinny, with a stupid haircut— like something Devi would expect to see on Justin Bieber or Jason Earles— and he is looking at her with an unwarranted amount of arrogant contempt. 

“And you’re the Wicked Witch of the West,” he says, crossing his arms, his dark green button up creasing at the elbows. She rolls her eyes. 

“I take that back, Ben, you  _ aren’t  _ a scarecrow,” she tells him, and he looks shocked for a moment, “you’re actually The Wizard of Oz himself— a huge, liar liar pants on fire type of fraud.” 

“Doesn’t change the fact that you’re still not able to kick a ball.” 

Devi sets her jaw. She can see  _ exactly _ how it would play out in her mind, dropping the ball on the ground and pulling her foot backwards, gaining momentum to swing it forward, kicking the bright red— it’s falsely red, something that would never occur on it’s own in nature— ball right into Ben's face. 

Instead, though, she throws the ball down, and forgets to account for the bounce, and tries to kick it immediately. The momentum plus the crumbled gravel that the asphalt has been reduced to makes her lose her footing, and she falls backwards, gravel and asphalt and embarrassment biting into her skin. Her elbow smacks into the ground, and she shouts, and a recess guard blows a whistle. 

She doesn’t cry until she pulls her palms in front of her face, and sees the blood welling up in the cuts. She’s  _ seen  _ blood before, and she’s been cut and scraped and, once, cut open by a shard of glass from a broken jar, but this, tiny pieces of gravel and flakes of skin hanging from her palms, seems like something new. Something worse. 

“Are you okay?” Johnson-or-Jackson asks, running over to her, and holding his hands out. She takes them— with just her fingers, so she doesn’t get blood on his hands— and wipes the tears on her face with her sleeve. She sees Ben out of the corner of her eye and— he doesn’t look smug or victorious, more just… pale. Pale and something else, something she can’t label or identify. 

“Devi?” Johnson-or-Jackson says, and she realizes he asked her a question. 

“S-Sorry, what?” Her palms are starting to hurt now, a persistent stabbing ache, like one million bee stings, and all she can think about is finding a way to make it stop. 

“Do you want me to take you to the nurses office?” he repeats, and it’s almost like there is genuine concern in his eyes. Instantly, Devi feels guilty, because she doesn’t even know his name. 

She wants to say no, because she wants Ben to think that she is tougher than she really is, for real, but then she moves her thumb and her skin stretches and it feels like how she imagines a trampoline to feel when someone jumps on it. So, she nods, and let’s Johnson-or-Jackson grab her arm. 

A recess aide unlocks the door to the building for them, and smiles a little sadly at Devi when she sees how watery her eyes are. Johnson-or-Jackson talks the whole way there, like he is trying to be comforting, or trying to fill the sniffling silence, but she just wishes he would be quiet. Or that she knew his name. 

He pushes open the door for her and signs her in on the sheet so she won’t have to. He spells her last name wrong—  _ Fishwackoomar  _ instead of  _ Vishwakumar—  _ and if her hands didn’t hurt as badly as they do (like individual flames from each ruined skin cell) she would correct it. 

She is thinking about asking the school nurse— Mrs Collins— to fix it for her, when she hums and shakes her head, muttering, “oh,  _ I _ see.” as she spreads Neosporin on a thick band aid with a stringy cloth front, and sticks it to Devi’s elbow. It stands out stark against her skin, and she instinctively picks at it, before Mrs Collins swats her hand away.

“What?” Devi asks, pulling her arm away from Mrs Collins and cradling it. The medicine stings, but she knows that it means it’s working. She can hear her dad's voice now, in her head, whispering,  _ things hurt sometimes  _ kanna.  _ Would you give up reading if it meant avoiding paper cuts forever?  _

She always seems to think about her dad when she gets hurt, and it makes her want to watch  _ Taare Zameen Par  _ under a thick blanket and eat small, individually wrapped pieces of Kismi toffee. 

“Oh, just that sometimes, when boys like girls, they’re mean to them,” Mrs Collins says, and waves her hands, turning to the small fridge set into the wall and pulling an ice pack from it before Devi can really process her words. “That Ben Gross boy probably just has a crush on you, that’s all, dear.” 

A  _ crush?  _

_ “What?”  _ Devi asks, sounding more horrified than she had intended. 

“My husband used to pull my pigtails and pick on me all the time when we were your age, Devi,” Mrs Collins says flippantly, and Devi’s mouth drops open. “You’re fine to go back to class now, dear. Come back if you need a bandaid replacement.” 

Devi nods, and stands up, not trusting herself to speak. 

The story spills out of her when her dad picks her up from school, before she has even buckled her seatbelt. He sits quietly while she talks, recounting everything— the Pokémon cards and the feeling of the kickball and Johnson-or-Jackson and how Ben had called her The Wicked Witch of the West and missing the ball and then, finally, Mrs Collins words— and he says nothing until Devi stops, sucking in a deep breath and finally buckling her seatbelt. 

“So… this nurse thinks Benjamin Gross likes you?” her dad says, glossing over the majority of the story. 

_ “Yes!”  _ Devi shouts, and her dad makes a shushing noise, holding his hand flat in the air and pushing it down, his gesture that Devi knows means  _ lower your volume.  _

“It is a possibility,  _ kanna,  _ but…” he starts, then trails off, starting the car and tapping his fingers methodically against the steering wheel. 

“But  _ what, appa?” _

“I do not want you thinking that someone being  _ mean  _ to you means that they like you,” he tells her, and pulls from the pickup lane, “there is a chance that Benjamin likes you, but does not know how to say it. Just… do not think that  _ every  _ person who is mean to you likes you.” 

Devi sits back in her seat, forgetting for a moment that her palms are still freshly wounded, pressing them into the upholstery, and wincing when bolts of pain shoot up her arms. If not  _ every  _ person who is mean to her likes her, then that definitely means Ben Gross doesn’t, right? 

Whether or not it is true, it is good enough for her, because right at that moment, her dad slips her a piece of Kismi toffee, and she successfully forgets all about Ben Gross.

* * *

_ii._

“Now what?” Ben asks, falling backwards on his couch and blinking hard. The TV says it is two twenty four AM— he hasn’t been up this late since last year, when he had the stomach flu. 

“Fuck, marry, kill,” Brian says, conspirationally, and Ben rolls his eyes. Brian has recently learned about fuck, marry, kill from his older brother and his friends, and Ben hates it a little bit. 

“It’s so… juvenile,” Ben says, running a hand over his face, and Garrett snorts. Ben can't see him, but he’s sure that Brian is rolling his eyes. 

Ben at fourteen likes to pretend that he is older than he is. He organizes his clothes by brand and his books alphabetically, and he wears a button down to school, everyday. He feels grown up enough with that, not to mention the fact that he makes his own meals three times a week. He isn’t going to let a game of fuck, marry, kill derail his sense of superiority. Until… 

“Dude, it would make you more of an adult to be able to play it without complaining,” Brian tells him, sipping out of the long necked glass of root beer, “right now, you just seem like a pansy.” 

Ben knows he’s only saying  _ pansy  _ because he isn’t brave enough to say  _ pussy. _

“Fine, I’ll play,” he relents, and turns to Garrett (he has chocolate in the corner of his mouth, and Ben knows he won’t wipe it off, even if he points it out), “fuck, marry, kill… Heena Magar, Judy Thompson, and… Carly Brayton!” 

“Okay, fuck Heena, any day of the week—” 

“— I’ll drink to that,” Brian says, and Ben cringes.  _ Gross.  _ Heena is hot, yeah, but she’s also smart. Her and Ben had had a long conversation about the impacts of the Election of 1860 on the start of the Civil War a few weeks ago, and now, whenever he thinks about her, Abraham Lincoln shows up in his mind, too.

“Shut  _ up _ Brian,” Garrett says, and throws a handful of semi stale popcorn at Brian. He catches one of the pieces in his mouth, and Ben rolls his eyes. 

“Get on with it, Garrett.” 

“Okay, okay, so, fuck Heena— don’t even start, Brian— I’d kill Carly, because she’s annoying and weird, and I  _ guess  _ I’d marry Judy. But it would end, immediately, in divorce because I’d cheat on her with Heena.” 

“You have zero values,” Ben tells him, turning completely to face him, “zero— less than zero, you have… negative five values. You’d be the worst Dungeons and Dragons character in existence.” 

“The characters without morals are always the best characters,” Garrett says, and Ben just rolls his eyes and stays quiet, because he knows Garrett is right. 

“Brian, it’s your turn.” 

They go a few rounds, Brian putting up a fight, because he doesn’t want to marry anyone, and Garrett complaining that he has to choose between fucking Shira Stein and Zoë Maytag. It’s dumb, the whole thing is, but Ben still finds himself laughing easily.

“Okay, the pièce de résistance,” Brian says, and Ben is only a  _ little  _ shocked that he used it correctly. Brian’s acting a little drunk, a little wobbly, even though there is no possible way for him to have gotten drunk. 

“Give it to me,” Ben says, making a  _ come closer  _ gesture with his hand, the same movement his father makes when a cashier is taking too long to hand him his change. 

“Fuck, marry, kill,” Brian says, his voice low, “Eleanor Wong, Fabiola Torres, and, of course—” 

Ben knows who Brian is going to say before he even says it, because to leave the trio incomplete would be completely out of the question— 

— but Ben is really, really hoping he won’t say it—

“— Devi Vishwakumar.” Brian smirks and sips from his root beer bottle, and Garrett makes a long and loud  _ oooh _ noise, smacking his hand into the bowl of semi stale popcorn. Ben grimaces. 

He considers his options. Fuck, marry, kill, Eleanor, Fabiola, and Devi.  _ Devi?  _ His enemy and the source of all his problems?  _ Not all,  _ his mind nags,  _ Devi didn’t make your parents miss your first real sleepover.  _ He runs a hand over his face. He could, theoretically, kill her. Eliminate all (most) of his problems, and move on. But the thought of  _ not  _ having someone to beat makes him feel a little sick. 

“I’d fuck Eleanor,” he hears himself say, and watches Brian and Garrett exchange looks, “I’d kill… Fabiola, so I guess I’d marry Devi.” 

“What the  _ fuck?”  _ Garrett asks, and shoves his shoulder. Ben almost tumbles off the couch, but he catches himself, one hand holding onto the back of the couch and the other flat against the floor. He pulls himself back up, and feels his abs ache. “You’d marry  _ her?  _ Are we talking about the same Devi Vishwakumar, here?” Garrett says her last name wrong on purpose— he says it like Vishw _ oo _ kumar— and Ben feels anger pool in his gut.

“First of all, it’s Vishw _ a _ kumar, dick, it’s not cool that you say it wrong,” Ben says, not really sure why he says it. 

“You can’t make fun of his wife, Garrett,” Brian says, and Ben scowls at him. 

“She’s not  _ actually  _ my wife, I’d never marry her,” he points out, “and, second of all, I don’t want to kill her because then I’d have no one to beat, repeatedly, in class.” The reason is good enough for him, so it better be good enough for his friends.

“I think you just like her,” Brian says, shrugging. 

“I do  _ not  _ like her,” Ben defends, even though he does not feel like his heart is really in it, “she’s… she’s an unfuckable nerd.” 

He regrets the words as soon as he’s said them.

He does not know why he says it, really. He feels a bit like he is floating, drifting down one of the rivers of the Underworld (not the Lethe, unfortunately, because he  _ knows  _ he will remember this) and he wishes he could land on solid ground. Wishes he could make some sense of the past ten minutes. 

“Ben, that’s like… the funniest thing you’ve said all night,” Garrett says, and Ben winces, “they’re  _ all  _ unfuckable nerds— Fabiola and Eleanor, too.”

“Call them the UN,” Brian suggests, and Ben feels sick, even as Garrett laughs, full body.

“I’m gonna go to sleep,” Ben mutters, and rolls over, so he’s facing the back of the couch, and pulls a blanket off of it, wrapping it around himself like it is a shield.

_ Idiot.  _

* * *

_ iii.  _

“This is  _ ridiculous!”  _ she shouts, pushing her backpack into the backseat of her dad's car and turning around, folding her arms over her chest. 

“Buckle your seat belt,  _ kanna,  _ then tell me what is wrong,” her dad says, and she heaves a sigh, clicking her seatbelt into place. 

“Stupid Mr Catalano paired stupid Ben Gross and I together for the stupid semester.” She knows her dad is going to scold her for calling her teacher and Ben (she isn’t sure why, but both of her parents seem to really like him) stupid, but she can’t be bothered to care. 

Predictably, he says, “don’t say such rude things about your teacher, Devi, or that Benjamin Gross boy.”

“They’re both awful,” Devi argues, slumping against her seat, “Mr Catalano is making us study  _ Romeo & Juliet,  _ and then we  _ each  _ have to act out the balcony scene.  _ Together.”  _

Usually, her dad says something that sounds smart, like it should be embroidered on a pillow or written on the walls inside of a church, but Devi can tell he is tired today. He has seemed tired all the time, lately, and he has gray hairs dotting his beard and his temples. It makes Devi’s stomach go sour thinking about it.

Instead of telling her something wise, he says, “just try to make the most of it,  _ kanna.”  _

She makes the most of it for three days. 

Her and Ben managed to map out a system where they wouldn’t have to communicate much at all. She reads odd numbered scenes, and he reads even numbered ones, then they swap, taking notes and sharing them at the end of class. It all explodes, though, on the day they’re set to read the balcony scene aloud to the class.

Ben picks a fight early, arguing with her about her choice to wear jeans and a baggy T-shirt with the Taj Mahal on it instead of something nice. 

“You didn’t even tell me I  _ should  _ wear something nice, Ben,” she whisper-shouts, under her breath, as the group ahead of them performs. They read directly from the textbook without looking up, and their voices are flat. “And even if you had, I still wouldn’t have worn it. I’d  _ never  _ dress nice for you.” 

“You’d dress nice for your GPA, though,” he fires back, voice acidic, and Devi rolls her eyes.

“We aren’t getting graded on how we dress— it’s purely on reading comprehension. I already asked, Ben.” 

“Whatever,” he cedes, leaning back and crossing his arms, “but if we get a bad grade on this, it’s not my fault.” 

“Devi and Ben, you’re up!” Mr Catalano says, entirely too peppy for a high school Honours English teacher, and claps his hands. 

Devi heaves a sigh, and stands up, cracking her textbook open and waiting for Ben to follow behind her. He looks similarly disinterested, setting his textbook on the table heavily. 

“You know where to begin— Act II, Scene two, line eight-four-four.” Mr Catalano claps his hands again, and Devi feels her palms get wet, nerves coursing through her stomach. Why is she nervous? It’s Ben, he barely knows how to read, it’s not like this is going to be difficult. 

“He jests at scars that never felt a wound,” Ben starts, and her heart lurches. He reads this like he is meant to read it, meant to light matches that make Shakespeare's words glow to life. It makes her feel fluttery and light and off balance, and she’s torn between wanting it to end soon, and never wanting it to be over. 

She almost misses her line, absorbed in his voice and Shakespeare's words, but he kicks her calf lightly, under the table, and she realizes she has been staring at him. 

“Ay, me,” she says, her voice shaking, and catches his eye. Blue and on fire, his pupils blown wide. 

“She speaks: O, speak again, bright angel!” he reads, and the look in his eye is incomparable. Something setting her on fire, lighting a flame within her veins. 

Time drags on, and she hears her voice catch when she reads her lines, mind spinning at the tone of his voice and the emotion he creates. Her skin feels doused in cold water as Ben reads his final line, “his help to crave, and my dear hap to tell.” 

The class applauds lazily, while Mr Catalano applauds with heart. “Devi, Ben,” he says, drama, and wipes away fake tears from his eyes, “the raw emotion, I’m practically hearing wedding bells between you two.” 

The class snickers. 

“Opposing families, their children falling deeply in true love… depicted perfectly between young foes.” 

Devi wants to be sick, casting her glance over to Ben as Mr Catalano continues talking, the cold shock dumped over her skin becoming warm embarrassment, and all she can think about is getting out of there. 

She is out of her seat before she can really think it through, pushing the classroom door open and running down the hall, turning into a bathroom and locking the stall door, leaning heavily against it. 

Wedding bells?  _ What the fuck?  _

There— There are just some things you don’t say to your students, and this, Devi thinks, should be top of the list. She probably wouldn’t care  _ this  _ much, wouldn’t panic  _ this  _ bad, if Ben hadn’t made her feel… whatever it was he made her feel. 

She doesn’t come out of the stall until she hears the bell ring; she washes her hands and splashes water over her face until she feels normal, and walks to Honours Biology, hoping beyond hope that Fabiola brought her stuff from English. 

Her stuff is sitting in a neat stack on her desk, with a neon blue post-it note stuck on top of her binder, scratchy scrawl writing out a note.

_ Devi _

_ Sorry about Catalano. I have no idea why he did that. Anyway, I got your stuff for you... duh. See you in Geometry  _

_ Ben _

_ Ben  _ brought her stuff for her. He isn’t even in her Biology class, and he still brought her stuff for her. 

She peels the post-it note off carefully and slides it into the back of her phone case after traces her pinkie finger over the letters in her name. 

She sees him in Honours Geometry, and he smiles at her.

* * *

_iv._

“It’s insane that you like your omelettes with  _ that  _ much meat in them,” Ben says, cutting up his pancake with the side of his fork. “It’s like… eighty percent meat, David.” 

“It’s called being free from a vegetarian household, Gross,” she says, propping her feet up on an empty chair. Patty had been caught up in taking care of one of her sons— he had caught a fever at school— and the only things either of them can cook are breakfast foods. 

Devi makes surprisingly good pancakes— she even heats the syrup in the microwave, and even though he really likes them, he’d never tell her. 

“What are you gonna do when your mom wants you to come home?” he asks, even though he knows it’s futile. The first time he had asked, Devi had pretended not to hear him, and Ben is pretty certain that Devi thinks her mom won’t ever want her back. 

He knows it’s not true. Nalini isn’t like his parents— she actually comes to Devi’s school events, and he  _ knows  _ they eat dinner together every night. He knows, with everything he is, that Devi’s mom is going to want her to come home. 

“I’m sorry, did you say something, Ben?” Devi asks him, her eyebrows raised. Ben shakes his head, but smiles, one corner of his mouth turning up. He takes another bite of his stack of pancakes. “Are they okay?” 

“Is what okay?” he asks, speaking through a mouthful of food, just because he knows it will gross her out. She furrows her brow, and wrinkles her nose, all of her features scrunching up into a look of disgust. 

“The pancakes, Gross.” She sounds legitimately concerned, and he smiles, his heart feeling lighter and fluttery. Devi has been doing that to him lately, making him feel like he is flying and falling all at the same time, like he is floating through the pink clouds of the sunset.

He decides to break his promise of never telling her. “Yeah, they’re really good, actually. I like them.”

“Knew you were soft for me, Gross.”

“Actually, I’m just soft for these pancakes,” he tells her, and she rolls her eyes, scoffing. 

“Whatever lets me stay here and use your dishwasher.”

“I  _ knew  _ you were just using me for my dishwasher.” She laughs— actually laughs, loud and full body, and it makes her eyes dance and sparkle— and pushes his shoulder. He eats the last bite of his pancakes and gets up, rinsing the syrup and the crumbs off of it before setting it inside his dishwasher. 

He takes her plate from her when she holds it out to him and sets it in the dishwasher with his, leaning against the counter to watch her scroll through her phone. That’s something that has increased more since she’s moved in, watching her. He used to do it at school a lot— she twists her hair around her finger when she is thinking, and he is almost positive she doesn't even realize it— but he isnt used to having someone here with him, especially not someone like Devi. She is chaos in motion, and Ben is savouring the time he is able to have with her. 

“What do you want to do?” he asks, and she looks up from her phone, a small smile playing at her lips. 

“What were you thinking we could do?”

“Popcorn and a movie?” he suggests, in the form of a question, and she raises an eyebrow. “It’s not like I don’t have a screening room with a giant TV.”

“I want to watch a movie on the couch,” she says, and gets up, pushing her chair in and jumping over the back of the couch, pulling Ben’s blanket off the back of it and wrapping it around her shoulders.

“Okay then,” he whispers. She waits for him while he makes a bowl of popcorn, and lets him grab the remote, turning the TV on. He’s pretty sure she only does it because she can’t figure out how to turn on the TV on her own. “What do you want to watch, Devi?” 

“Hmm…  _ The Princess Bride?”  _ she suggests, and Ben rolls his eyes.

“Really?  _ That  _ movie?” 

“Are you actually attempting to start an argument with me over the quality of an undeniably fantastic movie?” she asks, putting a hand to her chest. “A classic tale of true love and high adventure?” 

“Did you just… quote the cover of the book at me?”

“You better believe it,” she says back, and he rolls his eyes again. “Okay, that's it.” She reaches over, grabbing the remote from his hand and sitting back in her spot before he even has a moment to react, and he groans in protest as she pulls up the movie.

“This movie isn't even that good, Devi.” 

“That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said in your whole life,” she tells him, pressing play, and smiling as the Metro Goldwyn Mayer lion roars on the screen. “This movie is amazing.” 

“The book is better,” he argues, but sits back away, leaving the remote alone when Devi sets it on the coffee table.

“The book is always better— even if Fezzik dies at the end.” 

Ben chokes on his popcorn. “Fezzik  _ what?”  _ he asks, before he can stop himself. Devi is looking at him with a characteristic smile, and when she leans in to bump his shoulder with her own, she does not pull back to the spot she started in. 

Her shoulder is brushing his when she says, “you clearly haven’t read  _ Buttercup's Baby,  _ and yet here you are, getting a false sense of superiority.”

“Fezzik  _ dies?”  _ he asks again, ignoring the opening scene of the movie. He always thought the story within a story idea was kind of stupid, anyway. “How?” 

“He falls off a cliff,” Devi tells him, then shrugs, “well, technically, he jumps.” 

_ “Why?”  _

“Well, this kidnapper steals Buttercup and Westley’s daughter— I’m not going to explain anything more than just how Fezzik dies, so don’t ask about their daughter— and he throws Waverly off a cliff, and Fezzik jumps after her.” 

“What the  _ fuck?”  _ Ben drawls, dozens of questions appearing in his mind, and Devi bursts out into laughter, then shushes him when the grandfather starts reading the story. “Why are you shushing me? I wasn’t saying anything.” 

“Shut up!” She smacks him on the arm, then leans into him, grabbing popcorn out of the bowl. “What's your favourite part?” she whispers.

“I thought I was supposed to be shutting up?” he whispers back, and resists the urge to wrap an arm around her shoulders. 

“Just tell me what your favourite part is, dick.” 

“Probably the part where Westley tells her not to kill herself because her boobs are nice,” he tells her, and Devi groans. 

“God, you're such— such a  _ man.  _ That's such a man answer.” 

“You asked.” 

“Yeah, but I thought you’d have some  _ class.”  _

“Nice to know that you have a high opinion of me.” 

“Had a momentary good opinion of you,” she corrects, and he laughs, softly, before turning back to the movie. Fezzik, Vizzini, and Inigo Montoya— is he the only character with a last name, Ben wonders— are kidnapping Buttercup. 

He blinks, and suddenly, the movie is over, and Patty is tapping him awake gently. He startles, sitting up, and instinctively wiping his chin. “Hey, Patty,” he whispers, his voice a little rough from sleep, “what are you doing here?”

“I called to check on you, but no one answers— wanted to check,” she explains, and her eyes drift to his side. He looks down, and,  _ oh,  _ okay. 

Devi is tucked into his side, her body curled up into his and her— his— blanket thrown over both of their laps. One of his arms is around her, and her face is adorably scrunched up, like she concentrates even in her sleep. The sight of her makes his heart soar. 

“She is a sweet girl,” Patty says, and Ben nods, a little absently. He pushes a strand of her hair out of her eyes, his brain still fogged with sleep, and lets his hand linger. “You… what happened to Miss Shira?”

“What?” Ben asks, confused. 

“Miss Shira— it seems like you’re with Miss Devi now,” Patty says, and feels icicles grow where his veins used to be. He can't even stop to appreciate the way Patty says Devi’s name— all on exhale, every time, rising up a few notes when she reaches the  _ i—  _ and moves to pull himself from Devis grasp. She digs her fingers into his sweatshirt.

“No, I’m— Shira and I broke up, but I’m not… dating Devi, she’s just my friend.”

“Oh,” Patty says, and sounds almost disappointed. 

“What?” 

“No thing,” Patty says. She always does that, separating the word  _ nothing  _ into  _ no  _ and  _ thing.  _ “You just… smile bigger with Miss Devi.” 

“Oh… okay,” he replies, unsure of what else he could possibly say. “Thanks, Patty.” 

“You’re welcome, sweet boy.”

* * *

_v._

Something about going home feels… wrong. No, not wrong, just off center, balance tipped, like everything has shifted a few inches, or one hundred eighty degrees. 

Devi knows that Kamala can tell. 

Sometimes, Devi thinks that Kamala knows her feelings even before she does. It’s not like Kamala isn't smart, and Devi is done pretending that Kamala doesn’t understand her. She  _ knows  _ that her cousin gets her— everything that happened with Steve more than proves it, to Devi— but sometimes, it seems like Kamala’s understanding of her goes beyond just plain understanding of teenage angst. 

Which is why, when Kamala knocks on Devi’s door and whispers,  _ “kanna, _ can I come in?” Devi lets her. She looks immaculate, her hair in a long sweeping braid, a pair of matching pajamas on. Devi knows she probably got them from somewhere stupid, like a WalMart clearance bin or a GoodWill, but the fact that she looks so good in them does not make her as angry now as it would have two weeks ago.

“What d’you want, Kamala?” she asks, sitting up on her bed and setting her phone aside, pulling her knees up to her chest. 

“I’m just a little worried about you, Devi,” Kamala says, and sits down at the foot of Devi’s bed, tucking one leg under herself. 

Devi frowns, her nose scrunching up. “Why?” 

“You seem… not yourself.” 

“Oh.” So Kamala  _ had  _ noticed. Noticed that she has picked at her food and stared at nothing and looked at herself in the mirror even longer than usual. “I mean, I’m fine, I don’t know why—”

“Don’t lie to me, Devi.”

Devi opens her mouth, then closes it, frowning. “I  _ think  _ I’m fine.” 

“Did that Benjamin Gross boy do something?” Kamala asks, and Devi is quiet for one moment too long, because Kamala mutters something rude in Tamil. Devi’s eyes go wide.

“Kamala!” Devi shouts, pushing her shoulder gently. “Don’t say that, he didn’t do anything!” 

“Then why do you look like a child with a dropped ice cream cone?” Kamala asks her, and Devi pulls her bottom lip in between her teeth, and scoots down her bed so she can tuck herself into Kamala’s side. She wishes she wasn’t like this— weak— wishes she was tougher. Braver, like her mom, able to move halfway across the world and keep herself upright even after the love of her life dies. Devi wishes she would never cry again.

“I kissed him.”

“You kissed Ben?” Kamala asks, and Devi snorts through her tears at the tone in Kamala’s voice.

“Don’t sound so surprised, Kamala.”

“It’s just… I thought you hated him,  _ kanna,  _ you always said you did.” Kamala runs a hand over Devi’s hair, clicking her tongue while Devi cries softly, sniffling, wiping her face with the sleeve of her hoodie.

“He was really different while I was staying there,” Devi tells her, and once she starts, she cannot stop. The whole story spills out of her: asking Ben at his locker and doing the dishes together every night and making breakfast for dinner and waking up in the middle of the night, tucked into his side on the living room couch, more content there than in the guest room, and finally, kissing him in his dad's car on the cliffs at Malibu.

“Oh, Devi,” Kamala says, scratching her nails against Devi’s scalp. Kamala had helped her wash her hair enough times while she was in her wheelchair to know that Devi’s scalp was dry, and that it itched. “You aren't going to like what I want to tell you.” 

“Have I ever liked anything you’ve told me?” Devi jokes, and Kamala swats the side of her head gently. 

“I guess I won’t give you advice, if you are going to just be rude in return,” Kamala says, and Devi knows it is performative, but she relents anyway, tugging on her pajama sleeve and making a wounded noise. 

“Please tell me, Kamala,” she asks, and Kamala takes pity on her.

“I think you should talk to him.” 

“Out of the question.”

“That’s why I said you wouldn’t like it.” 

“You were right. I don’t.” 

Kamala clicks her tongue again, and pulls Devi from her side, looking her in the eye. “You need to get over all that pride, Devi.” 

“Pfft, what pride?” Devi says, and waves her hand, and Kamala rolls her eyes, before grabbing Devi by the shoulders and shaking her.

“Devi, can I tell you something my  _ paati  _ told me?” Kamala asks, and Devi pretends to consider it before nodding. “She used to tell me that we’re the only ones who get to pick what really matters in our lives, and that we  _ do  _ that by taking risks.” 

“You got that from a gum commercial, don’t lie,” Devi says, attempting to make herself feel lighter, less weighted.

“No, my  _ paati  _ really did say that, Devi,” Kamala assures, and smiles, a little sad. “Promise me you’ll talk to him.”

Devi’s eyes widen. “What?” 

“Promise me,” Kamala repeats, and Devi feels her hands start to shake, “I hate seeing you like this,  _ kanna,  _ like you are only half here.”

“Okay,” Devi hears herself say, nodding, “okay, I’ll talk to him.”

Kamala nods, then kisses Devi on the forehead, and disappears from her bedroom in a cloud of Bath & Body Works perfume Devi had gotten her for her birthday and incense. Devi falls back against her pillows, running her hands over her face and kicking her feet against the mattress. Why did she have to promise her?

She doesn’t want to talk to Ben, especially not about Malibu, especially not when she still has Paxtons voicemail lurking, unanswered, in her inbox. She thinks about it, thinks about the promise she made, and the look on Kamala’s face when she promised to talk to him.

She heaves a sigh. She’ll talk to him, she will…

Eventually.

* * *

_ \+ i. _

They are in interim. 

It feels like a constant, year long halftime, and it is exhausting him. He drives her home from school everyday and picks her up in the morning, letting her choose the music and pick on him for whatever is playing when she gets in. But they never, ever, talk for real.

Mr Shapiro pairs them up for a presentation worth a truly unreal amount of their grade, and he watches Devi sigh when their names are read off together.

It makes his heart drop.

He has liked her for much, much longer than he should have, without even really realizing it, at first. Thinking of Devi… it hurts him, and he is always expecting the fragile alliance they’ve built to blow up in his face. Impossible things begin and end everyday: the Titanic sank, Rome fell, and, eventually, him and Devi will split apart.

He is just hoping that it will be different from Malibu.

The pin was pulled from the grenade that is their relationship a long time before that, but the explosion had been Malibu, and he had barely made it out of the blast zone. He doesn’t want to have to do it again.

“After school, your house?” Devi asks, and pulls him from his reverie. He blinks. “To work on the project, stupid.”

“Oh, yeah, sure David,” he agrees, and turns away from her, spinning the dial on his locker.

“You okay?”

“Better than ever.” 

He knows she doesn't believe him, but he doesn’t really care.

* * *

“Okay, what do you have so far on Teddy Roosevelt?” 

“That he was a massive, racist shit? Oh, and he has a gross mustache” Devi replies, and Ben laughs, clicking out of his slide and moving onto hers. Thankfully, she has  _ actual  _ information on it, and no expletives. “What? It’s not like I’m wrong.” 

“Definitely not, but thanks for not including that in our presentation, David, I really appreciate it.”

“Are you mad at me?” Devi blurts out, in the kind of tone that Ben knows she was not planning on saying it. He turns to face her, and there is something in her eyes, something almost like vulnerability. Openness. 

“Why would I be mad at you?” There is no good way to answer something like that, no good way to describe the complex web of emotions that weaves itself together in his chest every time he sees her. It feels like… like stepping into an empty room, never knowing what could grab you, never knowing what you might see. Devi is a collection of things he will never know.

She is quiet, her mouth parted, before whispering, “nevermind.” 

He sets his jaw, and feels fire glow to life in his chest. “Okay,  _ now  _ I’m mad.” 

Her head shoots back up, and she looks him in the eye. Her guard is up again, the wall rebuilt, and Ben curls his fingers into his palm. “What?” she asks, half in whisper.

“You can’t just… ask me if I’m mad at you, and then not tell me why you’re asking. I want to know if I did something.” 

She shakes her head. “It’s nothing, Ben.”

He is tired of letting things go.

“Clearly it isn’t.” 

_ “Ben.”  _

“Just tell me, please.” 

“I  _ can't.”  _

“Why can’t you?” 

“Because I’m a coward!” she shouts, her voice thick, and Ben moves backwards, his eyes blown wide and his face slack. He hadn’t been expecting that… and, Devi, a coward? Never in a million years. “I’m a coward who runs away from things and never gives straight answers to hard questions.” 

“Devi,” he says, because he is not sure what else  _ to  _ say, “what the fuck are you talking about?” 

“I’m— I’m talking about breaking promises to my cousin and lying to my friends and you and myself and— I have to go.” She stands up suddenly, snapping her laptop closed and grabbing her bag. She is halfway out of his room before he manages to force himself into motion, shooting up from the floor like dandelions from the Earth, and beating her to the door.

“Tell me what’s going on,” he says, leaning against the door, effectively blocking her way out. He sees Devi eye the window, and snaps,  _ “don’t  _ even think about it, I swear to God, Devi.” 

“Did you know I’m named after a Goddess?” 

“Don’t deflect.”

“I mean, I am, it’s the truth.” 

“Very cool, now answer my question.” 

He should feel more scared, frightened, by this than he really is. He had been  _ terrified  _ after Malibu, after she had run away, and he had been scared the next Monday in class when she didn’t even look at him. He should be scared of her running, but maybe he is so used to it, that anything else seems impossible.

“I told my cousin I’d talk to you, after I moved out from your house,” she tells him, her voice shaking, “that's it.” 

“Liar,” he says, almost immediately, “don’t lie to me, Devi, I’ve known you too long for you to get away with lying. Plus, it's just not—”

“I like you!” she explodes, the words coming from her so loudly, they seem like they were punched out of her body. The air leaves his lungs and his mouth goes dry, and Devi does not stop talking. “I like you, I like your eyes and your hair and that  _ stupid  _ look you give me when you beat me to answering a question in class and I like that you can play piano and I like how smart you are—”

“God, Devi, just  _ shut up,”  _ he murmurs, ducking his head and cupping her jaw in his hand, turning her face up to kiss her. She makes a voice against his mouth, high up in her throat, like a gasping, fluttery sigh, and it makes his heart melt as he turns her around, pressing her into the door. 

“Don’t tell me to shut up, Gross,” she says, when he pulls away to breathe. 

“Shut up,” he repeats, then leans down, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I like your brain, and the way you crinkle your eyebrows at me when I say something dumb.” 

“Thanks for admitting you’re dumb.”

“I like your nose.” He kisses it, all the way down the slope of her nose, then kisses each of her eyelids. “I like your eyes, even when they’re glaring daggers at me.” He kisses her mouth, hard, bruising, and she moans into the kiss— that's something new, and it sets fire to Ben’s skin— before he pulls away, saying, “I really like your mouth, obviously.” 

“I may develop an ego, Gross,” Devi tells him, and he feels one of her hands drift into his hair, twisting her fingers into it.

“Guess I’ll have to save the rest for another time, then.”

“I’m holding you to that,” she says, and pulls him back down for a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you SO much for reading! Please leave a kudos if you enjoyed and a comment if you REALLY enjoyed, they make my cat respect me.


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